# TV Series Listing and Season Browsing | Vodlix **Source:** https://vodlix.com/features/series-listing **Summary:** Let viewers browse shows by genre, see progress marked on the poster before they click, and move between seasons without losing their place, on web, mobile and TV. **Publisher:** Vodlix --- How viewers find and move through a show. Genre browsing, progress marked on the poster, and a season picker that gets out of the way. - **Feature Plan:** 2 - front-end - content-management ## Twelve Hours Is a Bigger Ask Than Two Starting a series is a commitment in a way that starting a film is not. Vodlix lays shows out so a viewer can see what they are getting into, tell at a glance which ones they already started, and move between seasons without losing their place. ### Nobody Browses a Series the Way They Browse a Film Choosing a film is a decision about tonight. Choosing a series is a decision about the next month, and viewers behave accordingly. They are slower, they read more, and they are far more likely to abandon the choice entirely if the interface makes them work. They also arrive in two completely different states. Either they have never seen the show, in which case they need to know what it is and how long it runs, or they are four episodes in, in which case everything except the next episode is noise. A listing that serves only the first of those is the most common mistake in catalogue design, because it treats every visit as a discovery problem when most visits are a resumption problem. #### Rows that mean something Recent and featured shows are separate rows rather than one long grid, because a viewer scanning for something new and a viewer looking for what you are promoting are doing different things. #### Progress on the poster A thin bar under the artwork tells somebody they already started this one, before they click. That single line prevents the most common irritation in catalogue browsing. #### Narrow by genre A genre filter sits at the top of the listing rather than being buried in search, because most people browsing shows have a mood in mind rather than a title. ### The Season Picker Should Be Boring Choosing a season is one of those interactions that can only be neutral or annoying, never delightful, and the right design is therefore the one that finishes fastest. A short overlay listing the seasons, the current one marked, dismissed with a single control. It appears over the show rather than navigating away from it, so a viewer checking whether season three has landed does not lose the page they were on. What matters underneath is that seasons and episodes are a real structure rather than a naming convention, which is what lets the platform know that finishing the last episode of a season should offer the first of the next one. That structure is created and maintained through [series management](/features/series-management), and the position within it is held by [continue watching](/features/continue-watch). - mx-auto ### Episodes Need Their Own Descriptions A show has a synopsis and so does every episode, and the second one does more work than most operators expect. It is what somebody reads when they are deciding whether to watch one more before bed, and it is what tells a returning viewer which episode they actually got to when the numbering is not enough. Each episode carries its own title, its own still, its own duration and its own description, which also means each one is a page a search engine can index rather than being invisible inside a show. That is a meaningful amount of traffic for a catalogue with any depth to it. How viewers find their way in is covered under [content search](/features/content-search), and the rows shows appear in under [content lists](/features/content-lists). ### The Same Show on Three Different Machines A show browsed on a laptop, a phone and a television is the same show, but the way somebody moves through it is not remotely the same. A mouse can hover, a thumb cannot. A remote control has four directions and an OK button, which rules out most of what works on the web. Vodlix builds the listing separately for each rather than scaling one layout down and calling it responsive, while keeping the underlying structure identical, so a viewer who picked a season on a phone finds the same place on the television. The platform specific behaviour is described under [TV apps](/features/tv-apps) and [mobile apps](/features/mobile-apps). **Q: How is this different from series management?** Series management is the admin side, where seasons and episodes are created, uploaded and organised. This is what the viewer meets, the browsing, the season picker and the episode list. One is the work you do, the other is what it produces. **Q: Can viewers tell which shows they already started?** Yes. A progress bar appears under the artwork in the listing itself, so somebody can see they are partway through without opening anything. It is a small detail that prevents the most common frustration in browsing, which is rediscovering something you were already watching. **Q: Can shows be filtered by genre?** Yes, from the listing page itself rather than through search. Most people browsing series have a mood rather than a title in mind, so the genre filter belongs where they are already looking instead of behind a search box. **Q: How do viewers move between seasons?** A short overlay lists the seasons with the current one marked, and it appears over the show rather than navigating away from it. Season switching is an interaction that can only be neutral or annoying, so the design goal is to finish it quickly. **Q: Do individual episodes have their own descriptions?** They do, along with their own title, still image and duration. That matters for viewers deciding whether to watch one more, and it matters for search engines, because each episode becomes a page that can be indexed rather than being hidden inside the show. **Q: What happens at the end of a season?** Because seasons and episodes are a real structure rather than a naming convention, finishing the last episode of one season can lead into the first of the next. That only works if the platform understands the hierarchy, which is why it is modelled rather than inferred from file names. **Q: Is the listing the same on television as on the web?** The structure is the same and the layout is not. A remote control has four directions and an OK button, which rules out most of what works with a mouse, so the television listing is built for that rather than being a scaled down web page. **Q: Can I feature certain shows above the rest?** Yes. Featured shows sit in their own row separate from the most recent ones, so what you are promoting and what is simply new are distinguishable. Which shows appear there is decided through your content lists and editorial picks.